UrtheCast Reports Third Quarter 2018 Financial Results

UrtheCast Corp. (TSX:UR) (“UrtheCast” or the “Company”) today announces financial results for the three and nine months ended on September 30, 2018 and provides an update on its financial condition.

Revenue decreased by $8.0 million in the third quarter of 2018 compared to the same quarter last year and by $21.6 million for the year-to-date compared to the same period last year. Revenue from engineering services decreased by $7.1 million in the third quarter of 2018 compared to the same quarter last year, primarily due to a change in the expected completion date of one of our engineering services contracts during the current year, which resulted in the remaining revenue being recognized over a longer period, and due to a reduction in engineering revenue on our contracts for the provision of space hardware compared to the prior year. Earth Observation (“EO”) imagery sales decreased by $0.9 million in the third quarter of 2018 compared to the same quarter last year, due to lower contract volume in the current year and a delay in securing and meeting the revenue recognition criteria for the major contract with the ESA as discussed further below in “Business Highlights – Major EO Contract Awards”.

The net loss of $16.5 million and negative adjusted EBITDA of $6.8 million in the third quarter of 2018 were higher compared to the net loss of $6.4 million and negative adjusted EBITDA of $0.4 million in the same quarter last year, primarily due to the decrease in revenue.

Donald Osborne, CEO of UrtheCast, commented, “We have made important progress in the implementation of our strategic initiatives to restructure, streamline, and strengthen UrtheCast in order to achieve long-term sustainability and profitability. By simultaneously reducing our run-rate fixed costs and dramatically expanding our contracted revenue backlog to more than $350 million, we have refocused the Company on fully realizing the value of our unique service offering and the deep UrtheCast team. Building on this improved foundation, our upcoming acquisition of Geosys will enable us to move further up the geoanalytics value chain and deliver increasingly high-margin services to both existing and new customers. As we continue to conduct negotiations with our lenders, we believe that we have materially strengthened the Company and demonstrated a significant level of demand for UrtheDaily, and as such we remain confident that we will bring the groundbreaking UrtheDaily Constellation to the market for the benefit of our shareholders.”

• On November 7, 2018, UrtheCast announced that it entered into a definitive purchase agreement with Land O’Lakes, Inc. (“Land O’Lakes”) for the acquisition of Geosys Technology Holding LLC (“Geosys”), a wholly owned subsidiary of Land O’Lakes, for an aggregate cash purchase price of US$20 million, subject to customary working capital adjustments. The Company expects to complete the first closing before the end of 2018.
• UrtheCast will continue to provide Land O’Lakes with certain services currently provided by Geosys but with an expanded utilization of data once the UrtheDaily constellation is fully operational. Services would be provided by UrtheCast pursuant to a 13-year agreement, to be entered into on first closing, with total annual fees payable to UrtheCast in excess of US$10 million per year, and an increased rate at such time as the UrtheDaily Constellation is operational. 
• The Geosys acquisition would bring UrtheCast’s total contracted revenue backlog to in excess of $350 million.

• The Company reached an agreement in principle with 1112099 B.C. Ltd., the backstop party which entered into the conditional backstop agreement with the Company in connection with the private placement that closed on May 3, 2018, to extend to the Company a secured revolving credit facility of up to US$20 million, of which US$5 million was advanced as a non-convertible unsecured interest-bearing demand promissory note in September 2018. The revolving credit facility and the terms and conditions thereof remain subject to, among other things, the entering into of definitive documentation and the receipt of all necessary consents and approvals.

• On July 12, 2018 UrtheCast and its subsidiary, Deimos Imaging, S.L.U. (“Deimos”), announced that they have been awarded a multi-million Euro contract through a consortium led by Airbus Defence and Space to provide a large set of EO products and services to the European Commission and the European Space Agency (the “ESA”). As at September 30, 2018, Deimos had delivered over 90% of the contracted EO products to Airbus and approximately 50% of this data was accepted by Airbus. However, Deimos did not meet the revenue recognition criteria in the third quarter since the revenue recognition is tied to ESA’s acceptance of complete data sets to be delivered by Airbus, on behalf of the consortium, which has not yet been achieved.
• On September 20, 2018, UrtheCast announced that it signed a binding contract for US$25 million to provide data from its planned UrtheDaily Constellation to a long-established commercial Earth Observation operator and value-added services provider, which will provide UrtheCast US$5 million annually over the first five years of UrtheDaily operations.
• On October 18, 2018, UrtheCast announced that it signed a binding contract for US$30 million to provide data from its planned UrtheDaily Constellation to TerraTech JSC, a commercial provider of Earth observation and geoinformation services and a subsidiary of the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos. The contract would provide US$10 million annually over the first three years of UrtheDaily operations, with an option for an additional two years at the same annual rate.

• As previously announced, the Company entered into a US$142 million senior secured credit facility (the “Credit Agreement”) on May 18, 2018 with the senior lenders thereunder (the “Senior Lenders”) to finance the construction, launch, and deployment of the six-satellite UrtheDaily Constellation as well as related working capital and general corporate purposes. 
• As announced on October 26, 2018, the Company received a letter dated October 24, 2018 from the Senior Lenders advising that an event of default (the “Event of Default”) had occurred under the Credit Agreement as a result of the recent resignation of an executive of Deimos, who was identified as a key man in the Credit Agreement. UrtheCast also announced that it had entered into a forbearance agreement (the “Forbearance Agreement”) dated October 25, 2018 with the Senior Lenders pursuant to which the Senior Lenders agreed to refrain from taking any actions or seeking any remedies available to them under the terms of the Credit Agreement until November 23, 2018. The Company is in discussions with the Senior Lenders regarding ways to remedy the Event of Default. At the same time, the Company is exploring an alternate transaction with other lenders.
• UrtheCast is continuing to work to meet all previously announced first drawdown conditions under the Credit Agreement, including but not limited to, the refinancing of the Sabadell loan and the receipt of confirmation from the Senior Lenders that the minimum annual binding contractual commitments for UrtheDaily have been met. With more than $350 million in binding contractual commitments, management believes that UrtheCast’s business case, including for the Urth
  eDaily Constellation, has been validated, and intends to seek out alternative funding sources if the Senior Lenders choose not to fund under the Credit Agreement. 

We refer you to the Company’s condensed interim consolidated financial statements for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2018 and the related Management’s Discussion & Analysis for further details relating to the Company’s liquidity position. The Company has taken steps subsequent to the quarter ended September 30, 2018 to ensure that it is able to continue as a going concern and that it has adequate liquidity in the near term.

– Read the full quarterly financial results here.